Added Sugar: The Brain Bane
Added sugar has become one of the worst evils in our
modern food supply. Intended by nature to be consumed in
small amounts via whole fruit, where it’s packaged with
fiber, water, and nutrients, sugar has become the pervasive
addition to countless packaged foods and sweetened
beverages. Now, finally, nutrition labels in the United States
are mandated to list the amount of sugar added to products
—definitely not a cure-all, but a move in the right direction.
Whether the sugar is single-origin organic cane sugar,
brown rice syrup, or the industry darling high-fructose corn
syrup (HFCS), one thing is clear: the safest level of added
sugar consumption is zero.
One of the dangers of sugar consumption is that it can
hijack our brain’s pleasure centers. Packaged foods with
added sugar usually taste “impossibly delicious” and cause
massive spikes of dopamine, a neurotransmitter involved in
reward. Unfortunately, the more we consume, the more we
require to reach the same threshold of pleasure. Sound
familiar? It should: sugar, in the way it stimulates the release
of dopamine, resembles drugs of abuse. In fact, in animal
models, rats prefer sugar over cocaine—and rats really like
cocaine.
To borrow a term from Sigmund Freud, rodents are all id
— meaning they give in to their cravings. They don’t have
responsibilities (at least in the human sense), and they
certainly don’t have to worry about looking good in bathing
suits. This is why rat studies are an important part of
understanding how food—and in particular sugar—affects